This is photos from our first part of our Alaskan adventure. We flew into Anchorage and took the Alaska Railroad 8 hours to Denali National Park. We spent 2 half days and 1 full day at the park. Then we reconnected with our tour group back in Anchorage for our week long cruise, which will be another post! Hope you enjoy God's amazing creation!
Shepherd.
Well today is Day 4 of the cruise. We rolled into the port of Skagway today, and we took a boat over to Haines, AK. Then after a 30 minute bus ride, we arrived at the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, inwhich we planned on taking a 90 minute float down the Chilkat River to look for eagles and wildlife!
God was very gracious to us and gave us a beautiful, sunny day to float along the glacial fed river! It was still chilly, but so much better with the sun shining! The river, since it is fed by a melting glacier, the water is a constant 36-37 degrees...very cold! Plus you couldn't see the bottom of the river due to all the silt...not even if it was an inch deep! Thankfully, no one fell in!
We saw several bald eagles along the river. No bears, but we did get out on a sandbar and saw some fresh bear tracks that were probably from this morning. The salmon were starting to run, so we saw some salmon swimming up stream. One of our guides, CP, even caught two chumb salmons with a bucket, but he let them go. They were huge! His favorite is Sockeye and King salmon, then silver...chumb...and pink.
We all had a wonderful time enjoying God's creation. The scenery was simply amazing. It was definelty Amee's favorite trip on the cruise so far!
Day 3 of our Alaskan Cruise, we docked at the town of Juneau, which is the capital of Alaska. Also it is the largest capital in regards to land size in the country. You can only get to Juneau by boat or plane, which is amazing.
Well it was a cloudy and misty day, which they said it was a good day for whale watching because the whales come up to feed more often on cloudy days. Yeah! Well I dont know if that fact is true or not, but it worked for us! As we boarded our vessel, we actually saw a pod of Orcas (or Killer Whales) along the shore line! So we followed them for a while and I was able to get some great pics. The one above is actually of a baby orca whale, who surfaced above the water numerous times.
Then we saw this bald eagle perched up on this cool rock formation as we headed out to search for humpback whales. It was pretty awesome site. We also saw some sea lions as well.
Then we got to a spot known for humpback whales, and we were not dissappointed. We actually had 3 humpback whales around our boat doing some feeding dives. Feeding dives are where you get to see it's tail come up and out of the water. It was pretty awesome. The captain said it was very rare to have 3 humpbacks so close together, because unlike the orca's (who travel in pods) the humpbacks like to be by themselves. We even had one humpback whale come within 50-100 ft. from the boat. You didnt even need binoculars to get a good look at it!
Anyways, it was a great day! Two thumbs up! I love watching God's creation!
Shepherd
